


From Age to Age the Same

by waterlilyvioletfog



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Child Abuse, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Mentions of Starvation, None of it's graphic, Physical Abuse, Sex Worker Dean Winchester, but i thought i'd warn y'all, mentions of physical abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-06-27 13:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19791859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterlilyvioletfog/pseuds/waterlilyvioletfog
Summary: A timeline.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sup, peasants.   
> Did I pester @mittensmorgul at 10 at night for answers to the timeline and subsequently write this in three hours this morning? yes. Is is probably dreadful? Also yes. Am I going to apologize for any of that? Absolutely not.

Sam Winchester was born exactly six months before his mother's death. It's a fact about the world- an indisputable fact. He was born on May 2, 1983 to John and Mary Winchester. He was brought home a few days after. Dean Winchester at the time had been four years old. He'd been a happy child with blonde hair. He'd had his mother and his father for all four years of his life and now he had a baby brother. It was a perfect little family, one would think. Nothing odd about the Winchesters at all. 

Apart from the fact that Mary went on trips sometimes, with no explanation. Apart from that summer, when John took off for a while. Apart from Dean's memories of harsh, hushed arguments over the phone as he ate his lunch. Apart from the realization Mary had that kept her up some nights, that her marriage was falling apart and her life unraveling. Apart from the beginning of a long tradition of Dean cleaning up after his father. 

Apart from the fact that, even when John eventually came home, he and Mary no longer slept in the same bed. He slept in a chair in the living room, falling asleep to old movies on the television, usually with a beer in hand. 

(Dean's privately wondered sometimes if John had been cheating on his mother at that point, or if the women had only come after it all happened. John's dead now though, and Dean never got to ask. Sometimes he wishes he had. Most of the time he's glad he never had the courage. Dean's not sure how he would've handled the knowledge that John and Mary would probably have gotten divorced by the time he was six.) 

Sam Winchester was exactly six months old and Dean Winchester was nearly five when their mother burned to death on the ceiling of Sam's room. Mary had been twenty-eight, a month away from her twenty-ninth birthday. 

Dean Winchester was nearly five years old when he watched his mother burn and his father pushed his brother into his arms and told him to run. 

Dean was not quite five years old when his father turned responsibility of Sam over to Dean. 

Dean didn't talk for a while after that. 

\--- 

There's all sorts of things Dean never got around to telling Sam about their childhood. 

The fact that Dean sort of missed the second half of kindergarten. 

The fact that Dean had even fewer friends than Sam. 

The fact that Dean and Sam went hungry a few times, but Sam went hungry less frequently than Dean did. Dean made sure of it. 

\---

Sam was nearly killed by a shtriga when he was six years old. Dean was ten. 

Dean never forgave himself for that- not then, not seventeen years later, not thirty years later, not ever. Not even after they'd managed to work out most of their issues. 

\--- 

Unbeknownst to either of the Winchester boys, their younger half-brother Adam was born in September the year that Sam turned seven. 

Eight months before, John had been in California for Dean's eleventh birthday. Nine months before, he'd been in Wisconsin shortly after Christmas. (Being the Christmas before Sam gave Dean the amulet.) 

Dean had stopped making a fuss about his birthday after his seventh birthday came and went with nothing to commemorate it but another bottle of beer in his father's exhausted hands. He did always make a fuss for Sam's birthday, though. Sam, he was determined, would never need to be clued into anything, so long as he and John were careful. 

\---

When Sam was twelve, his brother disappeared for two months and Sam lived with Uncle Bobby. Sam had no why his brother had disappeared until Sam was thirty years old. It wasn't the first time Dean had "run off" and it wouldn't be the last. But it was the longest. 

Sam never worried that Dean wouldn't come back. He was too busy winning a soccer trophy, which John kept in one of his storage facilities. 

Living with Uncle Bobby was freeing. Yeah, Sam still had to practice shooting, but he was allowed to do his homework uninhibited. And Bobby was better at helping with homework than Dean was anyway. Sam got to read books of poetry Bobby had around the house and he watched strange and genuinely awful movies at the movie theater. He made friends and listened to terrible 80s music and honestly had a wonderful time. Bobby even gave him a toy spaceship! The spaceship was later lost to the shuffle of motel rooms. Sam couldn't tell you which one it was with a gun to his head. They all sort of blurred together- one great big liminal space. 

\---

The fact that all that bouncing around sort of messed up Dean's education. 

The fact that he knew how to cover up bruises from hunts because he didn't want someone to take Sam away. 

The fact that sometimes the food Dean brought home wasn't paid for by John but was stolen, or paid for by some no-name man who wanted a quick little something in a liminal space. 

The fact that eventually Dean stopped trying to pay attention to what was going on in school and started hanging out with the kids who did pot and smoked out back of the school. And he partook, more than a little, but never a lot. 

The fact that Dean kissed a lot of girls and a lot of boys. (But fewer girls than he'd have you believe.) 

\---

Dean dropped out of high school when Sam was fourteen.

"I'm eighteen now," he said. "I'm old enough to vote and sign up to join the military and get a full-time job. Why would I stay in school?" Sam couldn't argue with Dean's logic, but he disapproved nonetheless. 

\---

The summer Sam was fifteen, Dean mostly followed John around for a while. Then John started taking off for longer and longer stretches. 

Eventually, they ran out of money and Dean went into town and got a job at a mechanic shop. He'd drop Sam off at school in the mornings, then head into work. Sam would get himself home and eventually Dean would turn up. They'd get pizza and soda and they'd watch whatever was on TV. Sam would do his homework. Dean would read Vonnegut. Dean's job paid pretty well until John came back to town, drunk as usual, furious that Dean was holding down a job in a town. Furious at the idea that Dean might have a life outside of hunting, outside of it all. 

Dean didn't try to get "honest work" after that. He stuck to pool and poker and men in trucks. 

\--- 

Sam doesn't know what John did to Dean at Flagstaff. He doesn't want to know. 

\---

Sam graduated high school in June of 2001. He hadn't really applied to any schools yet- hadn't been in any one place long enough to know how he was supposed to do that. 

\---

He left for Stanford that December. He was enrolled for the winter term. Full ride. 

John and Sam got into the worst fight they'd had in Dean's memory. It ended with the door slamming and Sam leaving. "For good," Sam insisted. 

John beat Dean bloody once Sam was gone. 

\---

The first time Sam got high at a college party, he immediately called Dean. Dean was amused, but unpitying and largely unhelpful. 

"Have fun, baby brother!" he laughed. 

What a _jerk_. 

\---

Jessica Lee Moore turned twenty-one on the same day that Dean turned twenty-six. 

Sam woke up that morning and gave her a kiss. 

Jess smiled up at him. 

"It's my birthday today," she said. 

"Oh thank god," he grinned, "You can't be arrested for partying too hard any more." 

"Hmmm." She grinned brightly. 

"You gonna give me a birthday kiss?" She asked him. 

"It would be remiss of me in my duties as boyfriend not to," he replied and pressed close to her. 

Afterward, Sam stared up at the ceiling as a realization came over him. 

"What is it?" Jess asked. 

"It's my brother's birthday today, too." 

"Oh? How old is he?" 

"It's his twenty-sixth birthday." 

A pause. 

"Maybe I'll call him later. To wish him happy birthday." 

\--- 

_"Hey Dean, it's Sam._

_Don't freak out, I'm fine. I'm just calling to say happy birthday, man._

_I'm not getting you anything, by the way._

_Hope you're having fun._

_Happy birthday, Dean."_

\---

(Dean had been having fun, actually. Not that Sam wanted or needed to know that.) 

\--- 

Jess was twenty-one when she died on the ceiling. Sam was twenty two when his brother, once again, pulled him _literally_ out of the fire. 

\---

Sam and Dean were twenty-three and twenty-seven when their father died, at the grand old age of fifty-two. 

Dean worked tirelessly to build the Impala back up. 

Then Sam got wind of a case and they met Ellen and Ash and Jo. 

Dean slammed a crowbar into the hood of the Impala over and over and over again. And it still wasn't enough. 

\---

Sam was twenty-four when he died for the first time. 

Dean was twenty-eight when he sold his soul. 

\--- 

Dean was twenty-nine when he went to hell. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel flies through Hell.   
> Everything that happens happens too late to truly save the world.

Castiel was several billion years old when he first went to Hell. It was cold and dark and loud in Hell. The sulphurous air was filled with the screams of thousands and Castiel had to force himself to remember that these souls all deserved to be there, that the only thing of importance was the Mission.  _ But what of those who were duped into making deals? _ Castiel thought.  _ Should the fools be damned for all eternity along with the wicked? Even the ones with good intentions, like saving the life of one they love? _

_No, Castiel._ _The Mission._ The Mission was all that mattered. 

Hell was cold, but it stank with the scent of sweat. Hell was dark, but Castiel and his fellow angels  _ were _ Light and it lit their way. Further ahead, Castiel could see Light- green and gold and beautiful. “THAT IS HIM!” Castiel called to the others. It had to be. 

Demons pressed in on Castiel from every side, tearing at wings with tooth and claw. Castiel watched in horror as one of his sisters fell to thirty demons. She’d been a good soldier, and now her light was gone and Hell got just a little bit darker. Was this worth it?

_ No, Castiel. Do not think of her. Think only of The Mission. _

Dean Winchester had been in Hell for some forty years, had finally broken some ten years before that, but still his soul was beautiful. 

Castiel had never seen anything like it before. He reached out to Dean Winchester’s broken, bruised little beautiful soul and ripped the chains and blades from him and touched his shoulder. He gathered him up and flew out of Hell faster than he’d ever flown before, his blade stretched out before him to kill any demon that would dare stand in his way. 

_"_ _DEAN_ _ WINCHESTER IS SAVED!” _ Castiel cried to all angelkind, “ _ THE RIGHTEOUS MAN IS SAVED! _ ” 

Too late to save the First Seal, too late to save Sam Winchester’s soul- but Dean Winchester was saved. That had to be enough, Castiel thought, and he set his grace to healing that beautiful body. 

\--- 

Sam had been left on his own without his brother for four months- not a hope in Hell of getting him back, the only guarantee but a whisper of revenge- when his brother reappeared suddenly at his motel room door, looking awful healthy for a guy who'd been puppy chow just moons before. 

_ This isn't real, _ _Sam_ , he told himself, _any second now you're gonna wake up and it'll have been a dream and you're gonna want to go back to drinking the pain away and Ruby will give you blood instead of booze because what the hell, if you're going to be self-destructive, at least be helpful about it_. 

But it wasn't a dream. Dean was back, brash and bold and still suspicious of everyone and everything. Not that Sam could blame him for being suspicious. He was right, after all. Sam had been getting up to "extra curricular activities" as Dean so delicately put it. 

Asshole. 

Sam just wasn't going to tell Dean just yet. He'd wait until he was stronger, better, and then he'd _show_ him- how this was going to save so many people, so many lives, and wasn't that what this was all about? Saving people? 

As it turned out, "saving people" did not mean at the cost of your own soul in Dean's view. 

\--- 

Dean Winchester was not the sort of person who much believed in angels. 

Demons? Sure. He'd met demons. He'd killed demons. Demons were real, and there was just no getting around that. 

Gods were definitely a thing, too. It was pretty hard to deny the existence of something which had almost eaten you for Christmas Dinner. 

But angels? 

Angels, Dean didn't have proof of. Sure, there was plenty of lore, but there was plenty of lore surrounding dragons and unicorns, too. An abundance of lore wasn't proof of shit, so Dean had just discounted it. There was no proof that angels existed, he'd thought. 

Until now, of course. 

"Castiel" or whatever it was it called itself wore a meatsuit just a few inches shorter than Dean. Its eyes were bluer than the sky and its night-dark hair was as wild as the lightning it summoned. Whatever it was, it was beautiful and its voice, too, was beautiful and gravelly deep. 

Dean resisted the things he felt about all of that out of pure spite. _Fuck_ this guy for making Dean want to get tossed against a wall and have the living daylights fucked out of him. 

So Dean stabbing him was a matter of principle. It was important to send a clear first impression in this line of work. 

\--- 

And a lot of things happened after all of that. The year that the Winchester boys were twenty-nine and then thirty and twenty-five and then twenty-six was a long year full of strange happenings. There was a psychic woman named Pamela, who they met and flirted with and who went blind and died for them. There was Anna, a fallen angel who Dean had liked. There was Uriel, a proper dickbag, who Cas killed. There was their half-brother Adam and a sad smelly writer named Chuck who wore a stained undershirt and a worn-out bathrobe and was deemed to be a prophet of the Lord and there was a family called the Novaks. 

Oh right, and there was the nickname that Dean gave to Castiel- Cas. Three letters, though certain other people spelled it with four. 

And in the end there was the reveal that Heaven and Hell were _tired_ and the Winchesters had fallen prey to them. But Winchesters are the hunters, not the prey and so they killed Ruby, but not before it was all too late. 

And there was the part where Castiel fell in love. That happened, too. He fell bit by bit and then all at once. Irreversibly and irrevocably in love. And it's probably the most important thing to have ever happened in all of forever because in the end, it is what saved the Winchester boys and thus, the world. 

But enough with all that. There'll be time to speak of all that at another point in time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter: CAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
> Thx for reading.   
> Also, this might have Sam x Rowena in a later chapter?? We'll see how it goes. Anyway.   
> My handle is the same on tumblr as it is here. Come say hi! I don't bite! Unless you poke me in the face!


End file.
